The awe with which the Black Stone gang had filled me three years before had revived a thousandfold.

Personal humiliation was the least part of my trouble.
What worried me was the sense of being up against something inhumanly formidable and wise and strong.

I believed I was willing to own defeat and chuck up the game.
Among the unopened letters was one from Peter, a very bulky one which I sat down to read at leisure.

It was a curious epistle, far the longest he had ever written me, and its size made me understand his loneliness.
He was still at his German prison-camp, but expecting every day to go to Switzerland.

He said he could get back to England or South Africa, if he wanted, for they were clear that he could never be a combatant again; but he thought he had better stay in Switzerland, for he would be unhappy in England with all his friends fighting.